DCML Digest, Vol 52, Issue 16

[Don Rosa]

Oog. I want to try to mind my own business, and very little of that, these
days. I spare you these ungodly blocks of text that I send. But I can't let
this whopper get away...

From: dcml-bounces at nafsk.se [mailto:dcml-bounces at nafsk.se] 
>>>>>I hate to get all elitist on you guys, but it does seem to boil down to
a professional's point of view versus that of those who don't work in the
field and therefore have only a hazy knowledge of how the field itself
works. Many people have creative input; and while the story is primarily the
writer's, his "vision", if you will, is only one of those that affect what
you read on the page.

This and the rest is so wrong on so many levels... and I think I can show
that at least one fairly "elite" "professional" does not agree that this is
how it works at all. I can tell you that my stories are produced and
finalized just as I intend them to be with a few always-good suggestions
from Byron, but never any that I don't agree with, and that the final script
and art that becomes the publisher's "official version" is strictly my
creative vision, good or bad, and no one else's. And even if I usually am
not totally satisfied, all evidence seems to suggest that readers, young &
old, are pretty happy with my stuff just as it is, and especially happiest
when they read Gladstone's/Gemstone's versions where my scripts are used
word for word as written. 
Furthermore, though I always interject into every interview I give that what
I do is definitely *not* "art" and I maintain it is only "entertainment", I,
as one "professional", still do not consider what I do to be "casual
entertainment for children". I try to make it "intelligent entertainment for
adults (and if children enjoy it, too, good for them)". In truth, the
average reader of these stories in Europe is a teenager or young adult, say
10-20... *not* the same "children" who are reading BAMSE there. Meanwhile,
the average age of the reader of Gladstone/Gemstone comics in America, from
what I can tell from my stateside personal appearances and fanmail, are
"children" about 40-60 years old... but that's another unrelated matter
altogether. Whatever the case, the main readership is composed of
intelligent hoomin beans, not toddlers. I give them my best effort at all
times... I do not think I am providing "raw material" to be altered at the
whim of some unknown functionary whom I do not have any contact with or
knowledge of, and who may not have the slightest idea (or desire in having
the slightest idea) as to what my intention is in what I have the characters
say or *not* say. In some countries like Sweden or Finland, the translators
are very diligent, very knowledgeable (important!), and very careful to
preserve the authors' intentions. But, yes, I know that in other instances,
in other countries, most of which I mercifully never even know about, the
translators have no interest in what the original intention of the dialogue
may have been.

OBVIOUSLY (this seems to need to be repeated, eh?), when a play-on-words is
used in a script (which shouldn't happen in the first place in international
scripts), the translator needs to be clever and think up a different pun for
his target language or some other bit of business to fill the void. But if I
carry on for a page or two with NO gags whatsoever, or perhaps very limited
dialogue, or a specific type of dry humor, I certainly expect that a
translator would know enough about what he's doing NOT to decide to start
inserting one-liners or topical references or wordy jabber into every other
panel, breaking up the flow of timing and mood, just because what I am doing
does not match his personal sense of humor or lack thereof. That is not a
translator's job. If a translator thinks he is so much more clever than the
writers of the stories, why is he only a translator in the first place? Let
him write his own stories and express himself in the proper way... not
practice his creativity on someone else's dialogue, changing it, "punching
it up" for the audience and for the type of humor that *he* personally wants
to write for.

Are we saying that all these Disney comics are originally written by hacks
whose work is dull and who deserve to have no control over how people change
their intentions? Are we? If so, sure, rewrite the @#$& out of every page,
every panel.  If the writers don't give a flying @#$% about their own work,
sure, give them no respect. But I don't think that's what we think nor is
that the case. So their work should be used as they intended it, or passed
over in favor of something deemed better. Why try to use a weak script in
the first place? Find another story -- there are thousands of Disney stories
to pick from, after all.

But in this specific instance we are not really talking about translators.
You knew that the scripts are all provided to Gemstone already in English,
eh? But that English has been (not in my case, but otherwise almost always)
already translated from another language into a rather awkward English... in
a form that doesn't sound quite right as dialogue. What we are actually
discussing when it comes to Disney comics from Gladstone/Gemstone are not
translators but "dialogue reworders". The reworder has a difficult enough
job to rework that clumsy English into flowing dialogue *without* changing
or adding anything of his own. That's why good reworders are as essential as
actual translators who deserve all the credit they receive in helping to
present everything from comics to Voltaire or Dumas and everything in
between (or the Arsene Lupin book I was reading just last night, translated
as usual by LeBlanc's cohort, the great Alexander Tiexiera de Mattos).

(I can just imagine what Howard Roark would think of this conversation. I
wish I could conjure him up from the trial scene of THE FOUNTAINHEAD for
some choice words about this type of attitude toward an author (architect)
and an audience... this "art by committee". As an Ayn Rand fan, I'm already
not sure how I lasted 20 years in this field!)

But wait... Spreafico, Stajano, Rosa... izzit only us Italians with this
attitude? Are we creative/artistic stereotypes? Nonetheless, I was pleased
to see this wise summation come from my scholarly countryman in Cambridge --
he is defining "translator", but it also applies to "dialogue reworder"

From: Frank Stajano <fms27 at cam.ac.uk>
>>>>>A good translator is
- one who lets the original author shine through
- one who understands all the nuances of what the original author meant
- one capable of carrying as much of that as possible to the target language
- one who is humble enough to recognize that he is NOT THE AUTHOR and that
the original creation deserves faithful respect

I admit that the above seemed to drag a bit down around the 3rd line, but I
easily resisted punching it up with my own sidegag or jolly reference to
last night's AMERICAN IDOL* TV show. I think that if the author felt that
something like that was needed, he would have inserted it himself. (But
thank gosh I didn't hafta translate from his Italian!)

* (I've never seen AMERICAN IDOL and have no idea if it was actually on last
night, but from what I hear on Letterman it's always good for a cheap
topical laff.)
And with that, I again disappear. Lucky you.